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Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935

Shoe repair shop windows broken

Sometime during the disorder, the windows of a white-owned shoe repair shop at 2360 7th Avenue were broken. Located on the northwest corner of West 138th Street, the shop was the northernmost business damaged during the disorder. A tailor's shop two blocks south, between 135th and 136th Streets, also had windows broken. Although the blocks of 7th Avenue north of West 135th Street had few of the white-owned businesses that made up almost all those damaged during the disorder, there may have been more stores damaged in this area, as the Monterey Luncheonette at 2341 7th Avenue felt the need to post signs identifying it as a Black-owned business. The luncheonette's windows were not broken.



Patrolman Rappel of the 30th Precinct arrested Robert Porter, a forty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing an ashcan through the window of the store, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. Porter appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20. The offense of disorderly conduct was one that a Magistrate could adjudicate. Magistrate Ford convicted Porter and sentenced him to five days in the Workhouse or a fine of $25. "Porter went to jail," the New York Herald Tribune reported, an outcome also reported in the New York Age.

The white-owned shoe repair shop was still in business in the second half of 1935, when it was recorded in the MCCH business survey. The Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 appears to show a shoe store at the address.

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